


To See and Be Seen

by Edwardina



Category: Dexter (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Mild Gore, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-10
Updated: 2008-11-10
Packaged: 2017-11-14 15:03:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/516631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edwardina/pseuds/Edwardina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These days, Dexter's dreams all feature Miguel Prado.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To See and Be Seen

**Author's Note:**

> Written after 307.

Rita says it's anxiety. Maybe she's right -- Dexter doesn't know. He wouldn't know. Rita says everybody has dreams where they're lost, or running from something, or naked in public, or they can't find a bathroom, or their teeth are falling out and leaving their mouth full of shards of enamel and gaping wounds. It's normal, Rita says.

"I've never had dreams like this," mutters Dexter, throat thick. The sensation of his heart beating from his Adam's apple to his knees, this echo of what it feels like to be alive, is strange. He stares at the ceiling, then takes a deep, affected breath and rolls onto his side, away from Rita and her little belly so she won't find his hard-on. She's so motherly in the mornings. And horny.

"It's okay. Astor has dreams where she's lost Cody in a crowded place all the time, she's so used to helping me out with him... but Cody never even remembers his dreams." She shifts up behind him, and Dexter hopes her hand doesn't wander lower. She kisses his cheek, sweet and pink-mouthed, gentle as a dewdrop in the dawn light, and her breath is soft and comforting. "Dreams are just like static, you know? Brain static. A jumble of the things in your head, a mix of everything buried in there."

If these are the things buried his brain, he doesn't get where they're coming from or why they're there.

It's not like sex dreams are totally foreign to him; he had a couple of those when he was in middle school, and they were confusing, too, but in a flat, base way. They were only confusing because they represented the unknown. He didn't really care if he didn't understand them.

He dreamed of a girl -- dreamed of the smooth expanse of her stomach, dreamed of cutting her open. Of parting the flesh and seeing her internal organs, pink and red and purple, swollen and shining, and she bled all over his hand, warm like the animals he'd killed had been warm, but unlike them, she smiled at him. He'd wanted to slip his fingers into her guts, but he'd woken up instead. His sheets were wet, and it was warm. Although it had been the middle of the night and Dad always needed his sleep, Dexter still knocked on Harry's door and said, _I wet the bed._

Harry had eyed him from somewhere faraway, but got up without complaint, and Dexter led him back to the wet sheets, which had grown cold and sticky and which glistened in the yellow lamp light of his bedroom like the iridescent jelly inside the cow eyeball Dexter had dissected in fifth grade.

Harry said, _It's okay, Dex. It happens to everybody. It just means you're growing up. It's good that you told me. You know why it's good, Dexter? It means you're really learning to tell when something's not normal._

They'd washed the sheets and both gone back to bed, and that was that. The next time it happened, Dexter put his sheets in the wash himself, and Harry patted his shoulder. _I'm learning_ , Dexter told himself. _I'm growing up._ Then a girl wanted him to go to a dance, and he didn't dream about girls again no matter how much he wanted to stick them with knives and make them bleed.

 _I don't dream about it anymore_ , he told Harry in high school.

_Good, Dex. Glad to hear that. That's really good._

Was it really good? Was it really okay? Dexter didn't know then, and he doesn't know now.

But he doesn't exactly care either, does he. What's right and wrong. Okay and not okay. He doesn't live by that kind of code.

"Naked in public again?" Rita asks him. If she was a cat, she'd be purring.

"Yup," Dexter says. His voice is hollow with the lie, as practiced as he is. Beneath Rita's hand on his chest, his heart is still pumping quick. It's not alarming to let her feel it anymore, not now that they fuck all the time, but Dexter still somehow feels like he just killed someone and there's still blood on his hands, and that kind of adrenaline, Rita will never feel.

"I wonder what that says about you." She's smiling, he can feel it.

"That I'm an exhibitionist?" Dexter tries, brows perking, and Rita giggles, coy and velvety. He pulls away before she can get any ideas. At all. "I've got to move it if I want to make pancakes for the troops."

"Pancakes," Rita moans happily.

He smiles at her awkwardly over his shoulder, hopes with the promise of breakfast, it's all forgotten. Food always flicks a switch. People are so... predictable.

Except for him. An exhibitionist? Nothing could be further from the truth. Dexter craves solitude, true solitude -- the kind you can't find in the city, or even out in the keys, alone on a boat. There's always another boat. There's always someone watching.

He doesn't want to be seen. He is the seer. He is the voyeur. He is the one looking in windows, picking through files, seeing the sins and souls of others. Anyway, he doesn't dream about showing up at school without pants on, like Rita. He doesn't dream about school. Flying. Teeth. He doesn't dream about marriage and children -- the things in his life that he's collected around himself and placed strategically. These days, his dreams all feature Miguel Prado.

You wouldn't know it if you looked at him, right? Dexter knows that by now. Every day, he smiles at his colleagues, keeps his head down, says stuff like, _See you there!_ and _You got it!_ No one's waiting with cuffs in hand and a cold cop stare. Doakes is gone now, leaving Dexter with space to truly flourish. He's gotten even better at this game lately, blending in. He's getting married, after all. Rita's going to have his baby. It's so normal, and exactly what's expected of him. He's really pretty sure on that.

Still, when he catches a glimpse of Miguel Prado at work, shakes his hand, takes a manila folder or a beer or a putter from him, he feels like he's completely naked. It's unsettling. Different. Yet it's somehow not unwelcome.

 _He knows my secret_ , Dexter thinks, and feels what can only be described as contentment. _He knows my secret, and he doesn't want to fix me_ , he thinks, and feels secure. Connected. Attached to another human being like he was once leashed to Harry, but this is different. He feels calm and excited at the same time. _He knows my secret_ , Dexter thinks, _and he still likes me._

"Dexter," says Miguel, hand on his shoulder. His eyes are serious, and his voice lilts delicately, making Dexter sway under his grip. Beer doesn't usually do that to him, but he and Miguel had a few. "I would be honored to be your best man."

 _I have a best man_ , Dexter thinks.

"Rita will be happy to hear that," is what he says.

"Rita? Rita?" It's like he doesn't know who Dexter is talking about. "I'm so happy you asked me, man." He doesn't let go of Dexter's shoulder. "You are like a brother to me. You _are_ my brother, in the eyes of justice." He grins. "If only she wasn't so blind, eh? Then she could see as we do."

"I like the blindfold," Dexter says. Honesty feels right. Feels great. "I don't like to be seen."

"I know that about you, hermano."

"You're the only one," he returns.

Miguel puts an arm around him. Dexter's not that drunk, but maybe Miguel is. It makes it even easier to talk to him, like it's so easy to really speak to the people he straps down with plastic wrap. He can truly be himself with them. They don't yet know him, but they will.

He lets Miguel lead him out of the bar and into the hot night. Miguel is sweaty and impassioned with his intoxication, and Dexter can feel his body heat. It's warmer than the Miami night, sweltering against the shoulder that's neatly tucked into Miguel's armpit.

"You like the blindfold to remain in place, then, Dexter?" Miguel muses, pulling him along the walk. Dexter doesn't know who's leaning on who at this point. "Is it because you are afraid to be judged for what you have done? You don't want your intentions to be... misunderstood? Misconstrued?"

No. It's how his dark passenger can survive to see the next puddle of warm, sticky blood.

"I just prefer to do the blindfolding," Dexter says, in the warm huddle of Miguel's shoulder.

"But you cannot blindfold me."

That night, Dexter dreams he can. Miguel's narrowed, heated eyes, all covered with plastic wrap, wrapped in so many layers he can't see in and Miguel can't see out. It's pushed Miguel's dark hair back. His mouth is open, waiting. He's helpless -- like all of Dexter's victims are -- and naked, and strapped down. For some reason, it's got Dexter's body on edge like he's going to come, and Miguel is sweating until his dark skin shines like the plastic wrap does, but he's not scared. It isn't that kind of dream.

 _Are you ready_ , Dexter asks him, but he has no knife, no power saw, no needle and syringe, no weapon of any kind.

 _Yes_ , breathes Miguel. _I am ready. Let's do it._

The plastic wrap over Miguel's eyes is warm and slick when Dexter touches it, but he pauses. Even in his dreams, he can't do it. He can't reveal his secrets to anyone. His only choice is to kill Miguel Prado, he realizes. He knows too much.

 _Let me see you do it, Dexter_ , Miguel's voice begs, _let me see. I want to see some fucking blood._

His heart is beating so fast he might crumble into so many scattered limbs, and Dexter is about to give in when he wakes up with a jerk, the sheets a hot twisting trap around his legs.

Four in the morning. Should he wake Harry?

"Dexter," Rita croons, motherly even when she's half asleep. She's wrapped around him just like the sheets are, smothering, and the heat is unbearable even as it turns icy and his sweat makes him feel chilled. "Another naked dream?"

The instinct to pull away is automatic, and he fights it hard, makes his the hand that soothes even as he drags his hips away from hers.

"No," Dexter says. "Different dream. I, uh, was late for the wedding. Got stuck in traffic."

Rita's breath catches slightly; he can feel her ribcage hitch against his chest, and for a second, he thinks he's offended her, apparently dreaming about not being at the wedding and getting hard from it.

"That's so sweet," she murmurs, her delicate, worn hand gracing his cheek. "Don't worry, Dex. It's okay. Everything's going to be fine. It was just a bad dream."

"Just a dream," he whispers, as if vulnerable. He's right there in front of her, right in her face, under her hand. Can she really not see him?

Just a bad dream, Rita says. The things in his head. His dark passenger coming out to play again, only this time, it's his game. Is Miguel Prado out for blood in the same way he is?

Dexter doesn't know, but maybe he wants to find out.


End file.
